Just, when you come back and read this, remember sitting on the concrete steps, how her legs felt pressed up against yours, how the neighbor introduced himself and Reza fought us, as usual, about going to bed, among the dissolution of the last vestiges of pride. Remember the tone of your voice, the stream of consciousness, the tenor in which you finally stopped talking and began to speak.

Remember what it felt like to hear the words, ‘you are responsible’, that you are the one who created this place. Remember who told you, the man who said the words. Remember the legs that carried you there and how they felt, corded and sinewed, as she finally sat down to rest.

Remember reading her texts over and over and over again, refusing to allow self-righteousness and deflection to protect the parasite in your heart. Remember how those punches to the gut felt. Remember how winded you deserved to be. Remember how you struggled to breathe.

And when she walked up the sidewalk to the porch, she hugged you. She of a thousand cuts. Remember how she bled on you, and you bled on yourself for the first time in years, saving it, holding it, letting it run through your fingers without smearing it on anyone else.

Remember the commitments made to each of you last night, because they will be remembered with joy or regret, and that the choice is mostly yours.

And when she bleeds again, and when you bleed again, when those old heavy stones are removed from her lungs and her spine and her heart, remember that you are bound by love to accept them, no matter how heavy. You will hurt. Remember that she’s carried them, alone, for years, and you have the privilege to share this burden until time and forgiveness cracks them, erodes them to pebbles then dust.

Then, you will look back at the musculature of the new body the two of you have built from scratch, transparent and beautiful, and you’ll be thankful that you were given this opportunity after a night on the concrete steps, with her legs pressed up against yours.